soundness

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. The state or quality of being sound.

n. The result or product of being sound.

n. The property (of an argument) of not only being valid, but also of having true premises.

n. The property of a logical theory that whenever a wff is a theorem then it must also be valid. Symbolically, letting T represent a theory within logic L, this can be represented as the property that whenever is true, then must also be true, for any wff φ of logic L.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

This example confirms what we know about argument: logical/formal soundness is important, but the biases that audiences bring to the table are equally important — because the success of an argument ultimately depends on whether or not it actually persuades.

We learn that members are required to provide a "picture of the structure and finances of government" that is complete enough for an assessment of its "soundness" -- but an assessment by whom, and what if a government fails the test?